Nominate your company for Star Tribune's 5th annual Top Workplaces

The Star Tribune and Pennsylvania research firm WorkplaceDynamics once again are setting out to identify Minnesota’s Top Workplaces. Nominations are now open for our fifth annual issue.

When we launched this project in 2010, the economy was in the depths of a recession. By last year’s publication in June, the economy had improved significantly. We’ve found that Top Workplaces have excelled during lean as well as more prosperous times. Now we are aiming to see how many companies repeat their successes and how many companies will debut on our list.

Last year’s issue included 19 companies from different industries that have made each of our four previous lists, including a specialty health care company, a publicly held industrial manufacturer, the local office of a national realty company and a construction company.

The traits that workers consider important regardless of the type of company they work for include:

• Feeling “genuinely appreciated.”

• Being “confident about my future.”

• Believing that the organization is “going in the right direction.”

• Having “confidence in the leader of the organization.”

If you know of a company or nonprofit organization with 50 or more employees that deserves to be considered for this year’s Top Workplaces ranking, go to ­StarTribune.com/nominate. You can also call 612-605-3306.

We need your help in identifying those companies. We encourage individuals, employers or employees to nominate their companies and tell us what makes them great places to work. Employees at participating companies will be surveyed between January and April by WorkplaceDynamics, which also conducts surveys in more than 40 major metro markets around the country.

The nominations must be submitted by Feb. 21. In June, results will be published online at StarTribune.com and in a special print section. Thanks in advance for your help.

A sharp loss for Facebook is helping to pull technology companies lower as U.S. stock indexes decline Monday morning. The social media company is facing new criticism related to privacy issues following reports a data mining firm working for the Trump campaign improperly obtained and then kept data on tens of millions of users. The British pound is rising and European stocks are down after Britain and the European Union said they are getting closer to a deal that will complete Britain's departure from the EU.